


Martin Wants A Tea Party

by EmboldenedBirdbrain



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Fluff, Love Confessions, M/M, Sleep Deprivation, Tea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-01-26
Packaged: 2021-02-22 15:47:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22418620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmboldenedBirdbrain/pseuds/EmboldenedBirdbrain
Summary: Martin tries to use tea and T.S. Eliot as a segue into telling Jon he loves him, this goes about as smoothly as you would expect. Also it's 4am and neither of them have slept.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 14
Kudos: 101





	Martin Wants A Tea Party

Jon had an alarm set on his cell phone for midnight. Mostly, it was so that if he fell asleep at his desk, it would wake him and remind him to go home; he’d woken up all too often to a worried Martin trying to find a way to ask him why he hadn’t gone home. It was easier to at least go home and change clothes so he didn’t have to deal with that. What he wouldn’t have told you was that it was also a sort of security blanket. Time got muddy in the Archive, and the creeping paranoia that comes with being alone in a building was intensified by a feeling of being watched that came with the Archivist’s job and followed Jon everywhere. That tell-tale chime would pull Jon out of his fearful hyper-concentration and, in ways, remind him of the veneer of academic skepticism he found so hard to keep up. 

That alarm had gone off hours ago, and Jon was beginning to get jumpy again. He’d been sifting through a box of statements, and every speck of dirt was a worm’s dead husk, every accidental mark with a red pen, a drop of blood. He was losing it, and he hated that, but there wasn’t much he could do aside from try with all his might not to go insane. 

The sound was quiet at first: a heavy set of footsteps, getting louder as they made their way to the door of the room where Jon now sat on the floor, a box to one side and a bin to the other. He began to panic, and was frozen in a debate over whether or not to react, when the door was opened by a tall, wide figure backlit by the bright corridor.

“Jon? I just came to check up on you.”

Jon was caught between relief and anger.  _ It was Martin.  _ “What the hell are you still doing here? You nearly gave me a heart attack!”

Martin cowered, his grip closing around two steaming mugs in his hands. “I just, uh- well I--”

“Just… spit it out, Martin.”

“I brought you some tea. I figured I could maybe… well, I don’t know, lure you out of here. It can’t be good for you, just sitting in  _ this  _ place all night, alone.” On the word  _ this,  _ he gestured towards the glowering shadows of that dimly lit room, and Jon realized that, much to his chagrin, Martin had a point. But he couldn’t say that. 

“I’m fine, thank you,” Jon nearly spat. He felt a little bad for being so harsh with Martin, but he still wasn’t over that scare from earlier. “I have my alarm now, remember? You don’t need to stay here and look after me like- like some--” he stopped, noticing how Martin seemed to flinch with every word he said. “Fine. I’ll come with you, but you have to promise me you’ll go home after we’re done.”

“Okay. I promise.”

They didn’t go far. Most of the Institute was locked up, and the break room was lit by flickering LEDs that worsened the already spooky atmosphere of the place, so the two simply sat down in the corridor right outside the Archive. 

Jon wasn’t sure why he sat so close to Martin. He knew Sasha would have said he was “touch-starved,” but he found the idea ridiculous. He’d always fancied himself a loner, and a hug certainly wouldn’t solve the anxiety or insomnia that plagued him. It wasn’t exhaustion; he’d had at least two Red Bulls in the past few hours (he hated the taste, but he kept them in his desk for nights exactly like this one). Whatever the case, he found himself almost leaning on Martin’s much more broad shoulder, sitting with his legs crossed and resting his cup of tea between his ankles. They sat in comfortable silence for a moment until Martin got a look on his face almost like he was working out a difficult mathematical equation. 

“Martin?”

The ginger shook his head, finally noticing Jon’s confusion. “Yes?”

“Are you alright?”

Martin kept his cool as much as he was able, but the tips of his ears turned a bright red. Jon knew he had something to tell him.

“Well,” began the awkward twenty-something, “Basira told me something today, and I can’t get it out of my head.”

Jon’s ears didn’t usually perk up like they did then when it was just Martin’s conjecture, but he trusted Basira much more to have important contributions to any given investigation. Could it have been about Gertrude?

“We were talking about… T. S. Eliot, I think.  _ The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.  _ Well, I was more telling her about it- I know it almost back to front; it’s one of my favorites, so…”

“Just get to the point, Martin.” Jon was getting irritated again. Of course Martin had nothing important to say; he never did. 

“Well- we- we were talking about the first line. ‘Let us go then, you and I, when the evening is stretched out against the sky like a patient etherized upon a table.’ And I’d never really got that line, you know? It always seemed so depressing to me. But Basira, she said she thought it was really quite romantic.

“And she said this -and I haven’t been able to get it out of my head- she said it sounded like maybe Prufrock was really just happy to go somewhere with the person he loved, even if it was really gross and sad outside. Well I guess- what I’m trying to say is…” 

Jon would have interrupted by now, normally, and he wasn’t sure why he didn’t. Martin sighed deeply, as if there were some part of him deep down that wasn’t quite receiving oxygen, and continued:

“I think, well- I think I love you, Jon.”

Jon started as if Martin had just fired a gun right next to his ear, nearly spilling his tea. “You- you think- you  _ love  _ me?”

He said “love” in the same incredulous voice he’d used to say the words “ _ fire  _ you” when Martin had confessed to lying on his CV. He watched as the redness spread from just the tips of Martin’s ears to his whole face.

“Well- I mean- I- If you don’t feel the same way, then, I- I’m sorry.”

Jon didn’t know what to do with that, but a lot of things made sense now. He got why Martin always stayed at the Archive until he left, why he was constantly bringing him tea, why he would sometimes catch him staring; more importantly, though, now Jon understood why  _ he  _ did some of the things he did. He didn’t snap at Martin like he tended to do because he disliked him, he did it because he was irritated. He was irritated by things that scared him, and all at once he was forced to confront the fact that his feelings for Martin  _ scared  _ him. It was... a lot at 4 in the morning.

As he thought about this, he noticed Martin had gotten quiet, staring into his tea and looking as if he were trying very, very hard not to let on how sad he was.  _ He thinks I’m going to reject him,  _ Jon realized. He placed an awkward hand on Martin’s sweater-clad shoulder.

“Look, Martin, I-” Martin turned his head to look at him. For once in his life, Jon couldn’t  _ not  _ be honest about what he was thinking. He’d been a prick on occasion, sure, and he really didn't want to deal with this right now, but he got the sense dismissing this like he dismissed everything else would just be cruel. “Contrary to popular belief, maybe even sometimes mine, I don’t hate you. In fact, I find that rather difficult to do, especially when you’ve got that tone you get when you’re talking about poetry, and even if I don’t necessarily understand the  _ point  _ of reading anything by T.S. Eliot as the man rambled like….” he was getting cynical again, and this really was not the time. “The point is, I might-” -he braced himself to say the words- “I might love you too.”

Martin let out a sound that was a cross between a chuckle, a sob, and a sigh. “Thank God. I was- I was really scared, Jon.”

He smiled, and Jon melted. He felt himself blush, for the first time in what must have been years, from something that wasn’t anger or embarrassment. He still tried to maintain  _ some _ air of propriety, though the knowledge he had of the distinct lack of CCTV cameras in the Institute made that… difficult.

“Hey, Jon?” Martin looked rather sheepish again, and Jon had to admit, he wasn’t annoyed much by it. If anything, well… he found it kind of adorable.

“Yes, Martin?”

“Can I- and you can totally say no, but--”

“Yes, Martin. You may.” 

Two mugs of tea now sat, entirely forgotten, on the floor of the Institute as the two kissed, every once in a while pausing to laugh like giddy schoolboys. After all, Jon reasoned, it was hilarious. He had been _stupid._ _So incredibly stupid_. Because the minute he felt Martin’s hand on his face, the minute their lips touched, he knew there was nowhere else he wanted to be and _certainly_ nowhere else he belonged. Because, as trite as it sounded, Martin made him feel safe in a way he never got to anymore. What else was there than that?

And it was at that moment that night began to turn to day, although it was not necessarily the Sun that did it.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you guys for all the love this fic has gotten thus far! I honestly did not expect y'all to like it this much and I am just floored. Love you all!


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